Automobilista 2 September 2024 Development Update - The Road to V1.6 Pt2

And choose the compound wisely with v1.6. That is also very key

 

Yeah, random weather sometimes "helps" ... Crew Chief comes on the radio: "Track temp is dropping" *repeats this 15 times* and there I am on hards, while I started in the heatwave of the century with a full tank of fuel but weather turns... pffft.

 

I have checked your links and they are gold. Thanks for sharing.
I knew about Chris Haye's playlist but back then I was not consistent enough to try any change in the car

 

Thanks for the reply. I am personally trying to tone down my expectations, to avoid disappointment. But the more I hear about 1.6 the more difficult that becomes.

 

Well hopefully you will like it, I'd never thought I would say it: I developed a preference for the Nissan R390 GT1 in the class, never thought that would be possible, I loathed it with a passion before.

Should not be too long now, definitely before Christmas... I think?

 

from r3e

 

Oh boy thats a tough one to get something out if it currently.

 

As a VR racer who doesn’t like having any of the status stuff displayed you tend to put yourself at a bit of a disadvantage in exchange for the immersion.

I have an iPad as a simhub display where I can have a quick glance under the headset but it's not ideal, and I always forget the exact voice commands for Crewchief

 

Yes and no!

ACC is not really accurate when it comes to tyre pressures. Many fall into this trap because of this idea from ACC that to have a tyre pressure in every tyre at 26/7 in order to be fast. Yes in ACC that's true because of the (simplistic) tyre model. If memory serves correct, ACC uses 5 points to simulate contact with the road, AMS2 simulates the entire contact patch dynamically according to tyre pressures, temperature and load.

What you need, especially with AMS2, is to check your inner, middle and outer tyre temps. Use average and peak values to gain an insight into how the tyres are working. Using a telemetry app is the best option although there is a display in the game whilst driving in one of the hud's. This will inform you of the contact patch the tyre has with the road. Ideally, inner and outer would be within 8-10 degrees C of each other, inner hottest. The middle should be half way between them. That indicates the tyre is at the correct pressure. If the middle temp is comparatively low, to little pressure, to high to much pressure. If inner above the 8-10 range of outer, reduce camber. If below increase camber, but it's not too much of an issue, especially if this is the predominantly unloaded side of the car due to the circuits balance of left/right turns. Monza would be a good example, left tyres heavily loaded compared to right. It will not be possible to get every tyre perfectly in these guidelines, sometimes not for any tyre, compromise is key but middle temp being approx half way between inner and outer most important. Each class of car, compound, even car model will require something slightly different to be optimal, hence no ideal tyre pressure as in ACC.

Remember tyre pressure is dependant on tyre temperature, generally lower pressures achieve higher temperatures BUT higher temperatures lead to higher pressures. Getting the most out of tyres in real life is a dark art and very complicated. Likewise in AMS2 it is not as simple as set an ideal pressure and be fast! I hope that helps.

Edits for clarity and typos!

 

There does not exist "optimum pressure", only optimum temperature which you get by adjusting the setup based on the specific car, your driving style, track, weather conditions, time of day, month of year. If your tires on the HUD stay a nice saturated green then you are good so you have to keep using the practice session to dial your overal setup and even have (among other things) different tire pressures on either side of the car or even different in each individual tire.

 

I remember watching an old AMS2 video that said the absolute temperatures weren't as important as keeping the inside/middle/outside in the correct range from each other. Is this still what to look for in 1.6?

 

Refer to my post above.

 

As noted by some, tire temps are crucial for performance in 1.6, you will feel the understeer/oversteer exactly were it should depending on what tire/tires are overheating. Making it very important to choose the right tires for the right track temperatures, in a scorching hot Barcelona you might even need to qualify with the mediums in say the F-Classics because of the performance loss you might have due to overheated tires.

Track temps also affect overall grip even when the tires are at their optimal, you might do a qualy session with a nice 90°F track temp and then be slower when the track is a scorching 130°F with everything else equal.

It's some very immersive and realistic stuff!

 

As you probably know, Reiza are currently only able to provide one default set up per car - there are around 40000 car/track combos in game - but have said that they may eventually find time to provide a second default.

In the meantime, the defaults should be decent enough for "average" tracks, but would benefit from tweaking on low or high / fast or slow tracks. A lot of ongoing effort is currently being spent on balancing the AI versus player across the various combos, so in time we should be able to have competitive races at a fairly consistent AI strength across the board.

Note that AI=100 is meaningless, unless that just so happens to equate to your own pace. To figure that out running a ~30 minute qualifying session against Stock Car 2024 or F-Ultimate Gen 2 at Barcelona no chicane is recommended.

 

Your tire improvements discussion makes me even more impatiently waiting for 1.6.

 

Opinions may vary, but I’ve always thought 100% AI should represent a good mid pack driver, with a spread of AI better or worse either side.

As you say part of the issue is that it seems to be so dependent on the car/track combo so any work going into that resulting in an improvement will be appreciated.

 

Great answer, thanks

 

I agree. My favorite version of the game was between 1.3.5 and before the 1.4. With the new differential model, the majority of the car I liked to drive was understeery. From my tests, one the reason was the tyre pressure. For GT4 and GT3 and many others, the tyre pressure was set to 1.5 bar/22psi , and the first two laps was ok until you feel the grip fading and the tyre was getting hot af. In the description in game for the tyre pressure, it's said that low tyre pressure has better grip but less top speed and is bad with dissipating heat from carcass, and high tyre pressure has less grip but better top speed and is easy to regulate the heat. I found out 1.82 bar/26.5psi in general was very good : better top speed; a bit less grip; after 10 laps, the tyres was still in the correct window.
I think since 1.4 the tyres is set to 1.8 bar/26psi for GT4/3.
So, from my experience, it depends on the amount of high speed cornering and the weather. You need to balance the tyre pressures to be as low as possible for good raw grip, but as high as possible for top speed and most importantly to regulate the heat to keep the temperatures in the sweet spot for max grip.

Is there an optimal tyre temp ? Of course yes. Is there an optimal tyre grip ? from memory yes cause it drives the tyre temp but I don't know right now if it's still the case cause I skip the 1.4 and just casually playing the 1.5.
Looking forward for the 1.6 !

 

While I don't know the exact amount of contact points, you can be sure it has some, one at minimum.
The game needs to calculate collisions with the track mesh to calculate load variations in some way or another. What you are referring to is how the SETA tire model works, but as far as I understand, those calculations are not made in real time.
Also I wouldn't consider ACC's model "simplistic" simply because you need to be in a window. After all, what you just described above is that, the tire in AMS2 needs to be in a window of IMO/OMI values. I see the same 8/10 degrees values repeated pretty much in all setup guides, but I have never seen any proof of this.
It's just a different solution to an engineering problem, which is modelling a tire. Without data it's hard to say which one is correct.
By this I do not mean to scold anyone, I just want to invite to take these physics discussion with a pinch of salt.

 

IIRC it calculates it as a mesh so it has an “infinite” amount